Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Well, I was playing Devil's advocate there. However, there *are* fully grown people who are no longer substantially aware of what is going on, and thus might be considered equivalent to an embryo in terms of sentience.

The clearest example would be a brain-dead person. Many but not all people feel it is okay to harvest their organs, since the hope of recovery is slight. But what if someone is in a coma? When do you decide it is ethical to harvest *her* organs?

Now, back to embryos, some people may feel it is wrong to kill a tiny individual and would ask instead that we wait until that individual is mature enough to make her or his own decisions about when to become an organ and tissue donor.

The basic question surrounding our treatment of embryos and birthed humans is how do we decide when we should keep our hands off them. And then the next question becomes this: once someone has decided to kill them, what is the right thing to do with their bodies?